THE LAW

THE LAW; At the Bar

By David Margolick

Published: March 3, 1989

IRVINE, Calif.—
Baseball, sex and litigation. They are three of America's national pastimes, and they are all on the docket of a Southern California lawyer named James McGee.

Mr. McGee represents Margo Adams, the onetime lover and traveling companion of Wade Boggs, who has filed suit against the Boston Red Sox's celebrated third baseman in the wake of their breakup. As such, Mr. McGee is the architect of perhaps the country's best-known pending court case.

For Mr. McGee, a serious, intense man of 37 years, the hoopla of the Boggs case is far removed from the usual torpor of corporate litigation. And things heated up still further recently, when Penthouse magazine printed Ms. Adams's steamy memoirs.

For Ms. Adams, a 34-year-old onetime mortgage broker, the article, entitled ''Designated Swinger,'' was both lucrative and cathartic, casting Mr. Boggs as the most villainous ballplayer since Shoeless Joe Jackson. But for Mr. McGee, it marked only the latest in a series of strikes against his client.

Already the courts have hacked away at what was once a $12 million case. Mr. McGee fears that kiss-and-tell memoirs may not play well to jurors in Orange County, where the airport is named for John Wayne. Nor should things improve when, as Penthouse says, ''Margo Adams bares all'' in next month's issue.

Mr. Boggs's lawyer, Jennifer King of Tustin, Calif., calls the suit ''extortion'' and says it should never have been brought. ''Anybody can sue anybody for anything, but it's something lawyers shouldn't get away with,'' said Ms. King, who calls herself a ''bimbo buster.'' ''Mr. McGee's too smart to believe there's a legitimate cause of action here.''

But Mr. McGee, who grew up in Montclair, N.J., sees nothing frivolous in the case. Besides, he must know that whatever its outcome, the sins and silliness of clients rarely rub off on their lawyers. Where sex meets law, any publicity is good publicity.

Indeed, in recent months he has been besieged by calls from the jilted lovers of philanderers: from hockey, football, and basketball as well as baseball.

Mr. McGee calls the Boggs matter ''a standard, albeit not garden variety, oral contract case.'' But to collect the $500,000 to which he says his client is entitled, for lost income and services, he must spot in California case law what Ted Williams managed to find whenever he singled through the Lou Boudreau's Cleveland Indians infield: an exceedingly small hole.

Under the Lee Marvin ''palimony'' decision, there can be no cash awards for lost sexual services. Nor can there be compensation for the value of emotional sustenance as long as the couple cohabitates. That explains why Mr. McGee's court papers seem prudish, if not bowdlerized. Nowhere do words like ''paramour'' or ''mistress'' appear. Instead, he terms the tie a ''business relationship,'' with Ms. Adams playing chauffeur, financial adviser, travel agent, autograph broker, clothier, valet, seamstress, washerwoman - everything, in short, but lover.

All these duties paled next to what is, in Mr. McGee's case, perhaps her most important task: to placate the army of leprechauns, demons and dybbuks that apparently guide Mr. Boggs. If anything, his ranking for superstitiousness is even higher than for career batting, where he currently places fifth on the all-time list. In 64 road trips over four seasons, Mr. McGee contends, Ms. Adams made sure Mr. Boggs got certain lucky hotel rooms with certain lucky layouts, placed herself in certain lucky seats, drove him to the ballpark along certain lucky routes, wore certain lucky clothes of certain lucky colors, and made sure he ate only certain lucky foods, especially chicken.

Simply keeping track of all these things was serious business. ''It's one thing to order a pizza for someone, and another to order dinner for Wade Boggs,'' Mr. McGee asserted. And it worked: When she was with Mr. Boggs, he batted .341, as opposed to the anemic .221 he hit when accompanied by his wife.

Were there, as Mr. Boggs had once stated, ''hits in chicken?'' How did chicken help his hitting? Did Ms. Adams cook it for him on the road? How did she prepare it? Mr. Boggs, author of a recipe book called ''Fowl Tips,'' explained that lemon chicken, chicken cacciatore, or barbequed chicken worked best, but that other birds were turkeys.